


Scilicet Addendum: Nomen Est Omen

by Captain_Rachel



Series: The Rachel Wayne Universe [7]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Female Bruce Wayne, Genderswap, M/M, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, The Rachel Wayne Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 00:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6351310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Rachel/pseuds/Captain_Rachel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are an infinite number of parallel Earths. Sometimes the differences are so small as to be neigh on unnoticeable… but on this one they are not. For on this Earth your soul mate’s name appears on one wrist… and your enemy’s name appears on the other— without anything to indicate which is which. This is also a world where Thomas and Martha Wayne died… but Rachel Wayne survived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scilicet Addendum: Nomen Est Omen

_“Nome Est Omen”= Latin For “The Name Is The Sign”  
_

 — 1 —  


When Rachel Wayne was young her favorite bedtime story had been about how her parents met and fell in love. It should have been a straightforward story— after all, her parents were soul mates and had each other’s name written in black ink like a tattoo upon their wrists. Rachel’s mother had been born with **_Thomas Wayne_** on her left wrist and the name **_Martha Kane_** had appeared on her father’s right wrist a month after his second birthday. By the time that Martha was five and Thomas was seven the two’s parents had been arranging regular play dates and for a while it had seemed like things would proceed without any incident towards a marriage between the Waynes and the Kanes.

Thomas Wayne had been the sort of teenager that every parent longed for… while Martha Kane was the model of a rebellious teenager and one of the ways she rebelled was in rejecting the mark on her left wrist and swearing that she wasn’t going to let “fate” choose who she could fall in love with. Ten years passed before the two bumped into each other at a charity function and Thomas managed to convince Martha to give “fate” a chance. They were married less than a year later.

Whenever Martha and Thomas told their daughter this bedtime story it always ended the same… with whoever was telling the story reaching down to run a gentle finger over their daughter’s let wrist and the mark which rested there, which she had been born with. Then whoever was telling the story would tell their daughter how lucky she was and how the mark on her wrist— which was too small to be read— meant that somewhere out there someone was waiting for her just as Thomas and Martha had been waiting for each other, even when Martha hadn’t believed in fate.

Like most parents Thomas and Martha Wayne didn’t tell their daughter that the name on her wrist could have another meaning, that the name she bore could belong not to her soul mate… but to her enemy. It was an understandable lie of omission. After all, no parent wanted to think that their son or daughter could be born with the name of an adversary on their wrist instead of the cherished name of their soul mate. No one wanted to tuck their child in at night with stories about women who thought the name on their wrist belonged to their soul mate and ended up marrying abusers or even murders, or of men who went off to war because they had an exotic name on their wrist and came home in body bags because the name had belonged to someone in the opposite trench.

The first time that Rachel Wayne hears about the darker side of marks is when she’s eight years old and Bruce Dawes asks her if the mark on her wrist— which has just gotten big enough for the name to be clear—belongs to her soul mate or her enemy. Bruce has no mark on his wrists, is fascinated by the marks he sees on others and is less sheltered then Rachel, so when she doesn’t understand he gleefully explains and tells her all the mark horror stories he’s encountered. This leads to Rachel crying her eyes out in her mother’s arms while Bruce fights against his own mother’s hold and stubbornly refuses to apologize because, as he points out, there’s no way to tell _for sure_ if the name on your wrist is identifying your soul mate or your enemy.

Bruce Dawes apologizes after a few whispered words from his mother. He _really_ apologizes a few months later, a few days after Thomas and Martha Wayne’s funeral, when he finally notices that her mark has vanished and realizes that this means Rachel will probably never get to meet **_Jack Napier_** , let alone figure out if the man whose name once graced her left wrist was going to be her soul mate or her enemy.  


— 2 —  


Most people’s marks don’t change. They’re born with them, or get them at a young age when the other half of their mark is born and have them for all their life. Those marks may fade away if your other half dies before you meet them, or if you’ve only known them a short time or if the mark belonged to a defeated enemy. But if you’ve known your soul mate for any length of time then that mark stays, maybe fading slightly but never really going away. Even when one dies the marks remain— turning from jet black to a washed out grey as they breathe there last, but still there, still visible.

When Rachel Wayne is eight years old she watches, too scared and shocked to cry or scream, as her parents marks turn grey as their blood stains the pavement of what will be known as Crime Alley. Then, as what has just happened starts to sink in, her mark starts _burning_ and she screams as the name she was born with vanishes, leaving her left wrist bare as a new name appears on her previously bare right wrist. Rachel knows that it’s his name before the new mark has even finished appearing.

**_Joe Chill_ **

As Rachel Wayne grows older she manages to almost trick herself into finding some small comfort in the fact that her having _that_ name on her wrist means that Joe Chill has to live with _her_ name on his and while she can cover the mark, Chill is afforded no such luxury. In the worst moments the thought of keeping **_her_** name on **_his_** wrist, of keeping Chills crimes visible on his body keeps Rachel going… or at least it does until she learns that the Gotham District Attorney is going to release Joe Chill. When Rachel Wayne hears that news the first thing she does is look down at her wrist, at where **_Jack Napier_** used to be and where **_Joe Chill_** still is. In that moment Rachel knows what she’s going to do… or as it turns out she knew what she was going to _try_ to do, because before Rachel can carry out her plan someone else shoots and kills her parents’ murderer.

Watching Joe Chill die and knowing that his name is fading from her wrist feels so very, very good… but after a moment this satisfaction is replaced by nausea, because Rachel can practically feel how disappointed her father and Alfred Pennyworth would be with her if they knew how pleased she was to watch a man died.  


— 3 —  


Alexander “Lex” Luthor is born with blanks wrists, a mother who can’t decide if the name on her wrist is her soul mate or her enemy and a father who believes that marks on ones wrists show the names of those people who can be useful to you— provided that ones uses them before they can use you.

When his mother dies **_Lionel Luthor_** fades to grey but remains on her left wrist, while **_Lillian Down_** vanishes from his father’s left wrist as only the mark of one’s enemy is supposed to. As a consequence of this Lex grows up all but praying that his wrists will remain blank and fearful of how his father would react if a name ever appeared.

Clark Kent grows up with two (adoptive) parents who know without a doubt that the name belongs to their soul mate. His mother was born with **_Jonathan Kent_** on her left wrist, while **_Martha Kent_** appeared on her father’s right wrist when he was a little less than a year old and they’d gotten engaged only a handful of months after they met each other for the first time. Clark had grown up longing for a mark of his own, while his parents secretly worried that either his race didn’t have marks or that if a mark did appear then Clark’s soul mate would have their son’s birth name— whatever that might be— on their wrist.

When Lex’s Prosche smashes into Clark both men have just enough time to think _Well maybe **this** is why I don’t have a mark_ before they plunge into the Elbow River. Lex blacks out just as Clark realizes he’s unharmed despite the fact that he was just hit by a speeding car and the only thing that keeps the younger man from completely freaking out is that he can see the man in the car starting to drown right in front of his eyes.

Lex Luthor and Clark Kent’s wrists start to burn seconds before Clark pulls the two of them out of the water and on to the bank of the Elbow River— Lex doesn’t react because he’s unconscious and Clark doesn’t react because he’s too focused on the man who hit him with a car— on keeping him from dying on the muddy banks of the river as he calls 911 on his cell phone which (thankfully) seems none the worse for wear after the sudden dip in the river.

When Lex opens his eyes and gasps for air Clark relaxes enough to start thinking about how he should have died from the impact with the car, or at least been injured enough that he would be unable to rescue himself, let alone the car’s driver… and just as the pain in his wrist starts to register Clark happens to glance down just as **_Clark Kent_** finishes appearing on the bald man’s left wrist. Instantly Clark brings his own wrists up and doesn’t even try to stop himself from gasping as he watches **_Alexander Luthor_** appear on his right wrist. Clark’s gasp draws the attention of… well of Alexander, who does what most people do when they see someone staring at their wrists in shock— he checks his own.

For a moment neither of the two young men speaks or even moves. They just sit there, soaking wet, on the edge of the river, staring at the names which have suddenly appeared on their wrists and sneaking glances at the other man’s wrist where their own name now rests. As the sirens of the fast approaching ambulance fades in from the distance Lex takes a deep breath and breaks the silence.

“So… I guess you’re Clark Kent?”

The question startles a laugh from Clark, who presses the hand connected to his unmarked wrist over his mouth before he nods and extends his right wrist to **_Alexander Luthor_** , who reaches out to take hold of Clark’s right hand with his left hand, so that the two end up with their fingers resting on top of their own name.

It is a commonly held belief that if a mark appears either right before or right as you meet someone for the first time then that mark belongs not to your soul mate, but to your enemy. Your soul mate’s name is “supposed” to appear either when you are born (if they are older then you) or when they are born (if you are older then them) or several years or at the very least several months before you meet him or her. Despite having been raised in this belief, in that moment— sitting on the banks of the Elbow River, with cops and paramedics racing down the embankment towards them— both Clark Kent and Alexander Luthor _know_ that they are not enemies… but soul mates.

But then Clark’s father shows up and everything goes to hell in a hand basket because of _course_ Lex has the mark of someone who hates his father and therefore thinks that Lex is the son of Satan himself. So while Lex remains convinced that **_Clark Kent_** is his soul mate, a small part of Clark is starting to believe that **_Alexander Luthor_** may be his enemy, as his father had believed from the moment he saw the name which had appeared on his son’s right wrist.

Clark and Lex spend the next twelve years all but dancing around each other, with Lex trying to convince Clark that they really are soul mates and Clark torn between Lex and his father. By the time that Clark starts working for _The Daily Planet_ he’s managed to all but block out the fact that he still has **_Alexander Luthor_** written on his right wrist while Lex— who has completely demolished the company his father built and replaced it with one of his own design— is reluctantly starting to accept that while he still has **_Clark Kent_** written on his left wrist and still believes they are soul mates it’s looking increasingly unlikely that he will be able to convince Clark unless something truly unexpected happens.

— 4 —

Rachel’s wrist starts to burn at almost the exact moment that she lands on the slimy damp ground of the solitary confinement cell of a Chinese Prison which has been her home ever since her arrest a little less than two weeks ago. At that point pretty much every part of her body hurts— both from the rough treatment she’s received from the prison guards and from fighting off six men on an empty stomach and almost no sleep— so Rachel doesn’t notice the familiar pain, let alone roll back her sleeves to check her wrists… not even after Ducard steps out from the shadows, calls her by her real name and offers her the path of the League of Shadows. The next morning Rachel is thrown out of a moving truck, climbs a mountain and, despite feeling like she’s less than a second away from falling flat on her face, fights Ducard and somehow manages to holder her own.

After their bout Ducard— who is apparently going to be her teacher despite the fact that he seems to be Ra’s Al Ghul’s right hand man— shows her to a small chamber where she can wash away the grime of the prison, the road she’d been thrown out on to and the climb up the mountain and supplies her with a change of clothes. The shirt which Ducard gives her is slightly too large for her, so as she emerges from the chamber and finds the man waiting for her she pauses to roll the sleeves back and almost trips over her own feet when she realizes that there is a new name on her right wrist— **_Henri Ducard_**

For a second all Rachel can do is stare in shock at her new mark, but eventually he tears her eyes away to look at the man standing in front of her, who continues to stare at her wrist with a furrowed brow before he slowly raises his wrists and rolls back the sleeves of his shirt… which reveals that he has **_Rachel Wayne_** written upon his right wrist.

In her trek around the world Rachel has encountered more customs and superstitions surrounding marks then she had ever thought possible. She’s seen people weep with joy when they meet the one whose name they bear and she’s seen people fall into despair for the same reason. She’s watched prostitutes cover their marks with makeup and jewelry and seen those born with blank wrists get tattoos of their spouse’s name… she’s even seen people who don’t really react at all to meeting their soul mates, so when Henri Ducard simply shrugs and rolls his sleeve back down before heading off into the monastery and gesturing for Rachel to follow, she doesn’t press him for a comment on their apparent bond and follows his lead… both by walking after him and by rolling down her own sleeves.

In the days, weeks and eventually months that follow neither Henri nor Rachel comment on the fact that they have complementary marks and the two are nothing more than teacher and student… or at least they are nothing more than teacher and student until Rachel almost dies at the hands of Chao-xing, a member of the League of Shadows who had been next in line to become Henri Ducard’s student before Rachel’s arrival. The first thing that Rachel does once she is able to speak without her throat burning from the aftermath of narrowly surviving being poisoned is tell Henri about the other marks which she has had. In turn Henri tells her of how his wife’s name had appeared on his wrist when he was four years old and how it had slowly faded in the years after she was killed until it was all but invisible.

They become lovers soon after and then sort of informally engaged— Henri gives her a necklace with the symbol of the League and promises to follow that gift with a ring “worthy of her finger” the next time he heads off the mountain. But then Ra’s Al Ghul decides she is ready to become a master and a leader… provided she kills a man in cold blood to prove her dedication to the League of Shadows’ cause. Rachel replies by turning the Monastery into a smoldering ruin and leaving Henri in the care of a peasant before heading down the mountain.

It feels like she checks her right wrist every other step that she takes, expecting to find that **_Henri Ducard_** has vanished from it’s place on her right wrist in between checks or to watch it fade away as her original mark had faded all those years ago and as her parents’ murder’s mark had faded only a few short years ago. But all the way down the mountain and all the way to the small airstrip where she finds a phone that will connect her to Gotham and Alfred Pennyworth the mark on her wrist remains… right up until she’s sitting in the plane with the man she considers a second father and then— then something truly unexpected happens.  


— 5 —

Clark Kent is sitting at his desk in the cramped office at _The Daily Planet_ which he shares with Lois Lane, typing up an article when his left arm starts to itch. The Last Son of Krypton starts typing one handed so that he can absentmindedly scratch that itch with his right hand. It isn’t until he reaches the end of the article and sends it off to be proofread that Clark realizes his arm is still itching and pulls down his shirt sleeve, revealing that **_Rachel Wayne_** is now written across the inside of his left wrist. For a moment Clark just stares dumbfounded at the new mark. After that moment has passed his gaze shifts to his right arm and he pulls back his sleeve so that he can inspect that wrist, expecting to find it blank once again. But **_Alexander Luthor_** is still written there, as jet black as it was that day on the bank of the Elbow River all those years ago.

The background noise of _The Daily Planet_ , some of which would be audible in the little office even without Clark’s enhanced senses, seems to fade away into an almost overwhelming silence as Clark stares down at his wrists, his gaze flicking back and forth between the two names which now decorate them. After a long moment of hesitation Clark focuses in on the newer of the two marks… **_Rachel Wayne_**. It takes him a second to realize the name is familiar, but as soon as he does he immediately turns to his computer and brings up _The Daily Planet_ ’s website, expecting to find some late breaking news about the Gotham Heiress.

But instead he finds nothing… nothing at all about Rachel Wayne. Confused, he searches for the woman whose name he now wears on his wrist, but the only “new” article which shows up that mentions the last of the Gotham Waynes is an article about how William Earle, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, had moved to have the Wayne Heiress declared dead so that he could take the company public. With trembling fingers Clark sets up a news alert and sits silently at his computer for a second… until he hears a report of a bank robbery come in over the police radio of a car driving past _The Daily Planet_ and, welcoming the distraction from the two names upon his wrists, rushes off to help.

— 6 —  


Meanwhile, several blocks north of _The Daily Planet_ , Lex Luthor is sitting in his office on the top floor of Lex Corp Metropolis headquarters, reviewing the details of a Los Angeles company that he’s considering taking over when his right wrist starts to burn. Unlike Clark, Lex immediately recognizes that this burning is something to do with his mark. Despite the fact that the burning is happening on the wrong side, is terrified that it is a prelude to **_Clark Kent_** vanishing from his left wrist just as suddenly as it had appeared all those years ago.

So the first thing that Lex does is shove back the sleeve of his suit and shirt so that he can see his left wrist. When he finds that it still has **_Clark Kent_** written upon it, instead of looking at his right wrist Lex sort of settles in, expecting to watch the name of the farm boy who had saved his life so many years ago fade away in tandem with the burning on his right wrist. It’s only when the pain in his right wrist vanishes _without_ Clark’s name vanishing alongside it that Lex feels able to breathe. After allowing himself a moment to take several deep breaths and calm down as much as possible, Lex slowly turns his attention to his right wrist, pulling back suit and dress shirt before turning it over so that he can see the name written there… **_Rachel Wayne_**

Lex recognizes the name instantly. He’d known Rachel— in the same sort of general way he knew Olvier Queen, though without the animosity between him and the Star City businessman. Thomas and Martha Wayne hadn’t really associated with Lionel Luther any more then was necessary, but the Waynes and the Luthors had moved in similar circles. Growing up Rachel and Lex had often been the only children present at various functions… especially after the Waynes Murder when William Earle, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, had taken to dragging the “poor orphan” to such events as if she was some sort of accessory. Rachel had even attended Excelsior Academy during her high school years and had been in several of the same classes as Lex.

But, in addition to the fact that Rachel and Lex never really been “friends”, Rachel Wayne had been missing for almost five years and had been declared dead by the CEO of her parents company some three years ago… so why on earth had **_Rachel Wayne_** suddenly appeared on Lex’s right wrist and why the hell hadn’t it replaced, or at the very least erased, **_Clark Kent_ ** from Lex’s left wrist?

For a half second Lex allows himself to entertain the idea that he was _wrong_ all those years ago, that **_Clark Kent_** was his enemy and now to prove it he’s gotten **_Rachel Wayne_** as a soul mate. For a second Lex thinks that maybe Clark is one of those rare people who have two soul mates who are each other’s enemies because of this fact. For a full two seconds he contemplates that he was right all those years ago and that, despite everyone in the world saying she’s dead, **_Rachel Wayne_ ** is alive and is his enemy.

But then… then another option crosses Lex’s mind. People used to think that if you had a name written on your wrist (or wrists) whose gender was the same as your own, then that person was— without question and without exception— your enemy. Even now there were still far too many people who believed that was true. In a similar vein, people used to think that if you had two names on your wrists then one was your soul mate and— without question and without exception— your enemy. This one was still pretty damn widespread, although there were groups campaigning for “multiple soul mate recognition” and they’d made some serious headway over the past few years.

Lex had never really thought about what it meant if you had a name on either wrist or, less commonly, more than one name on a wrist. The most consideration he’d ever given the whole mess was when he’d decided to extend partner benefits to whomever his employees chose to list as their partner or partners. Other than that there had been no reason to ponder the more complex permutations of marks— after all Lex had always either had blank wrists or just one name on his wrist that he’d been convinced belonged to his soul mate.

But now… now that he has both **_Clark Kent_** and **_Rachel Wayne_** written upon his wrists, Lex is starting to think that maybe whoever or whatever it is that is responsible for the marks on people’s wrists has decided to be merciful and has given Lex that “truly unexpected” thing he had been hoping for, that thing which would convince Clark that the two of them weren’t enemies. Maybe this **_Rachel Wayne_** , this legally dead heiress to a family fortune that could rival those few remaining royal families’ fortunes, is both Clark _and_ Lex’s soulmate.

“Well…” Lex whispers to himself in the still silence of his penthouse office as he slowly runs his thumb over **_Rachel Wayne_**. “I guess we’ll just have to wait for you to rise from the dead to find out…”  


— 7 —

“I’m going to show the people of Gotham that their city no longer belongs to criminals and the corr—” Rachel Wayne cuts herself off with a gasp as a familiar pain races through the veins of her arms and seems to pool on her wrists… on _both_ of her wrists. From his seat across the small table in the private jet he’d brought to fetch her, Alfred Pennyworth leans forward, concern clear on his face. Rachel frowns and does her best to calm her suddenly racing heart and control her breathing as she reaches down and slowly pulls back her mud soaked sleeves so that both she and Alfred can see her wrists…

The first thing that Rachel notices is that while **_Henri Ducard_** is still written across her right wrist, it’s lower than it had been when she’d last checked it while she was waiting for Alfred’s plane to land. In the place where her mentor’s name used to rest there is a new name— **_Clark Kent_** — while on her left wrist, which has been blank ever since her original soul mate’s name had burned away the night that her parents were murdered, the name **_Alexander Luthor_** now resides.

Rachel doesn’t recognize the name which has pushed Henri’s down on her right wrist... and because of how far into the depths of her mind she’d shoved anything to do with her life as Rachel Wayne during her trip around the world it takes her a second to recognize the name which has appeared on her left. **_Alexander Luthor_**... the red-headed then bald boy who had been the only person her age at all those parties William Earle dragged her, the quiet but oh so smart boy in so many of her classes Excelsior Academy… the boy and then young man with the blank wrists who had suddenly started wearing a classy black leather band that covered his left wrist after his father had exiled him to some town in the middle of nowhere.

But despite this indication that she and **_Alexander Luthor_** were little more then acquaintances and the obvious fact that “Lex” has a… well at the very least _complicated_ history with marks and despite the fact that she has no idea who **_Clark Kent_** is, Rachel feels strangely calm as she looks at the two (newer) names on her wrists. Part of her still considers **_Henri Ducard_** to be her soul mate despite all the evidence to the contrary which has arisen over the past few days and the fact that she’s starting to see Chao-xing’s “disappearance” in a whole new _terrifying_ light, but despite this Rachel can’t help but classify these two new names under that same label… which helps her to push her mentor closer to some third, nebulous category.

“I… I guess I’ll need to start wearing bracelets.” Rachel practically whispers, shaking herself slightly as she reaches down and pulls her sleeves down over her wrists, covering all three names on her wrists. “Or perhaps I should use concealer…”

“And hope that Mr. Luthor— or this ‘Clark Kent’, whoever he may be— believe that they bear the mark of some _other_ Rachel Wayne?” Alfred asks, raising one eyebrow as he leans back slightly in his seat.

“What would you have me do Alfred?” Rachel asks, trying to swallow around the lump that has formed in her throat. “I... if I let them know, I’d just be putting them in danger. The best way I can protect them it so make them think I’m not their Rachel Wayne.”

“Protect them from what exactly?”

“If I’m going to try and save Gotham… Alfred, I highly doubt I’ll come out _alive_ — let alone without any enemies.” Rachel sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose before she continues. “The best thing I can do for my soul mates is to make sure that they never realize who I am… and keep them as far away from who I’m going to become as possible.”

Alfred Pennyworth says nothing— the look which he shoots at Rachel just before he stands and heads towards the plane’s small kitchen to fix something for his ~~daughter~~ employer to eat says it for him…

_Do you really think it will be that easy?  
_

— 8 —

It isn’t until Rachel has returned from the Narrows, dumped an unconscious Bruce Dawes into Alfred Pennyworth’s arms and is changing out of the suit of armor she’d “borrowed” from Lucius Fox that she notices that **_Henri Ducard_** is absent from her right wrist. For a moment she actually forgets to breathe as she connects the pieces and figures out why her mentor’s name had remained upon her wrist for so long only to vanish on her twenty-third birthday.

When Rachel makes this connection it takes all of her willpower to restrain herself to a single scream which startles the bats in the cave and echoes back at her for what seems like forever. After this outburst she shoves everything else deep inside, forcing herself to get ready for her birthday party as if she hadn’t just lost something so small but so previous and _she hadn’t even known she was preg_ —

Later, when she looks back and tries to make sense of events on the night she turned twenty-three, Rachel will realize that it was _this_ moment, when she’d had to pull herself back from another breakdown which might have lead to her breaking completely that she was too distracted to reapply the concealer she’d worn over her marks ever since her return to Gotham. Instead she just put on the thick gold bracelets which Alfred had laid out alongside gold hoop earrings and a dark red dress which looked like Rachel had wrapped herself in a length of fabric before throwing the end over her left shoulder. She slips in the hoop earrings as she steps into the ancient elevator that connects the cave with the house above and mentally pulls on the mask of “Rachel Wayne, Billionaire Heiress” as she heads towards the area of Wayne Manor where she is hosting her “little” birthday get-together.

She is unsurprised to find that Alfred is waiting for her in the study which the elevator opens on to and is only slightly surprised that Alfred says nothing but instead simply silently walks beside her as they head towards the ballroom and the smaller rooms around it which are now filled with her birthday guests. She’d expected at least a token lecture, some continuation of the one which she’d received when she’d decided to run off to the Narrows to get Bruce not two hours before her party was set to begin. But Alfred remains silent all the way up until just before Rachel is about to walk out into the party and play the role of Gotham’s Princess, at which point the man she thinks of as her father reaches over and gently touches the golden bracelet covering her left wrist before saying just two words.

“He’s here.”

Rachel can’t stop the gasp that escapes from her lips or the slight tremor that runs through her entire body at Alfred’s words. She wants nothing more than to turn away, to put as much distance as possible between her and the room of people in front of her… but she knows that’s not an option. So, falling back on all the mental and physical control which he’ gained through her childhood, her journey around the world and her time with the League of Shadows to school her face into the polite expression which her guests are expecting, squares her shoulders, holds her head high and steps out into the crowded ballroom.

She’s running practically on autopilot as she smiles politely and shakes hands as the guests stumble through “Happy Birthday” with a lot of guidance from the orchestra. Despite this most of the people in the room do not gravitate towards her, which leaves Rachel free to seek out those she actually needs or wants to speak with. So she asks William Earle about the stock offering and somehow manages to keep from smirking as he brushes her aside like she’s some sort of air-headed child and informs Lucius Fox that they’re going to need the antidote to Crane’s toxin produced on a massive scale. As Lucius sneaks off to break into Wayne Enterprises Rachel finds that she’s actually managed to hit her stride and regain some of _real_ confidence… but that vanishes the moment she turns to survey the room and almost runs straight into **_Alexander Luthor_**.

Before Rachel can say anything Lex wraps his arm around her shoulders and, gently but insistently, pulls her aside, to a secluded corner where they are all but hidden behind a large potted plant and an open door. The moment that the two of them are hidden from view Lex pushes back the right sleeve of his suit jacket and dress shirt, revealing that he has **_Rachel Wayne_** written upon his wrist.

For a moment Rachel hesitates, denials and excuses on the tip of her tongue… but she’s already lost so much today that she just… she just can’t risk loosing this as well. So with trembling fingers she removes the thick bracelet from her left wrist and offers it to **_Alexander Luthor_** for his inspection. Lex reaches out and grips her hand, so that their fingers are resting over each other’s marks and Rachel’s right hand suddenly tightens on thin air as she remembers the black wristband that Lex had worn before she left on her trip around the world.

“You used to cover your left wrist.” Rachel isn’t aware that she has spoken until Lex nods and releases her hand so that she can uncover his left wrist and offer it to Rachel… who freezes as she realizes that **_Clark Kent_** is written there, in exactly the same handwriting that decorates her right wrist. As Lex frowns at her reaction Rachel reaches down and removes the bracelet on her right wrist and offers it to Lex.

“Clark…” Lex stops to take a breath as he looks down at Rachel’s right wrist. “Clark and I met when we were young. His father hated mine and did his best to convince Clark that we are enemies— he ended up so conflicted that he refuses to acknowledge that my name is still on his wrist. He’s a reporter for _The Daily Planet_ now.”

“Well… well then it looks like I’ll be going to Metropolis in the near future. Or— or perhaps inviting Mr. Kent to Gotham.”

Lex laughs and reaches out to cup her cheek with his right hand. He leans forward, as if he is about to kiss her, only to hesitate, to pause as if to silently ask her permission. The corners of her lips twitch upwards before she leans forward and closes the distance between them and, for the first time in what feels like ages, _relaxes_. When the two eventually part both are breathing heavily, Lex’s jacket is askew and Rachel’s hair is less “artfully” messed up and more “actually” messed up.

“I… I really should be circulating.” Rachel blushes as she reaches up to brush a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Of course.” Lex replies, awkwardly smoothing down his shirt before clearing his throat.

“Come with me?” Rachel asks as she covers **_Clark Kent_** with a bracelet once again before slipping the other bracelet into the potted plant to retrieve later… which means that **_Alexander Luthor_** is now clearly visible on her left wrist. With a smirk Lex copies her, covering **_Clark Kent_** with his shirt and jacket sleeve but leaving both pulled back slightly so that **_Rachel Wayne_** can be seen on his right wrist. With this little bit of wardrobe rearranging finished Lex offers Rachel his arm and the two head back out into the crowded ballroom.  


— 9 —  


The first time he saw Rachel Wayne in the flesh she was beaten, bruised and covered in mud from her tussle in the breakfast line and being thrown on to the ground of the solitary confinement cell. Despite this one could not deny that the Wayne Heiress was stunningly beautiful, with piercing brown eyes, a sharp chin and high cheekbones… but there is something more to her then that. Something that despite having experience it himself he cannot put into words. It is undoubtedly the same something that had made the Wayne Heiress walk away from the only world she’d ever known and spend the past five years traveling the world until she’d ended up in a Chinese prison.

_My name is merely Ducard, but I speak for Ra’s Al Ghul. A man greatly feared by the criminal underworld. A man who can offer you a path._

When he leaves the cell he is not entirely sure what Rachel Wayne will do, but never the less he makes preparations for her arrival at the Monastery. When the Wayne Heiress all but staggers in, determination clear in the way she holds herself upright despite her obvious exhaustion and a blue flower clutched in one hand, he notices the burning in his wrist but does not inspect it, thinking that it marks the birth of a future lover and that the fact that it seems to accompany Rachel Wayne’s arrival is nothing but coincidence. He will scold himself for this later… after all, if there is one thing he should have learned over his long life, it is that there is no such thing as coincidence.

At first he thinks that their shared marks are not actually shared marks and are not the marks of soul mates. After all, Rachel Wayne has **_Henri Ducard_** written on her right wrist— not **_Ra’s Al Ghul_**. In the past the man Rachel Wayne knows as Henri Ducard has born the names of his most talented students… and they have all had the false name he introduced himself as their mark with until the time that they were ready to know the truth. On the other hand Ra’s Al Ghul’s previous soul mates had all born his true name, even those whom he first met as prospective students. So “Henri Ducard” sees their marks as an indication that Rachel Wayne will be a truly talented student… but nothing more will develop between them. It is only when Chao-Xing attempts to take Rachel Wayne’s life that Ra’s Al Ghul reconsiders the meaning of the marks they share. By the time that he allows Chaio-Xing to breathe her last desperate breaths he has decided that Rachel Wayne is not just his student… she is his _beloved_.

_Rachel what are you doing?!_

_What is necessary Henri._

Ra’s Al Ghul expects to wake with the taste of the Lazarus Pit on his lips and the rage and temporary madness which always accompanies such rebirths racing through him. He expects to wake with blank wrists, or at the very least to a fading mark. Instead he wakes in relative good health in the home of a peasant, with **_Rachel Wayne_** still written upon his right wrist. Four days later he sits in an elegant Hong Kong apartment and watches as the TV News reports on the return of “Gotham’s Princess”. He sends word to the League’s Gotham operatives that night, ordering that although they may engage his beloved, she is not to be unnecessarily harmed.

Unbeknownst to Ra’s Al Ghul until two days afterwards he arrives in Gotham at almost the exact moment that Jonathan Crane engages the “Bat” and fails to follow this latest order from the League of Shadows. The only reason that the man Rachel Wayne knows as Henri Ducard doesn’t have Crane dragged in front of him so that he can be punished for his actions is because **_Rachel Wayne_** is still written upon his right wrist and he has faith that if his beloved could survive Chao-Xing’s treachery then he has no doubt she will survive Crane’s attack, especially given her prior exposure to the League of Shadows’ toxin.

He is proven correct two days later when “the Bat” rescues Bruce Dawes from Arkham Asylum and leads the Gotham Police on a very amusing chase through the streets and over the rooftops of Gotham before vanishing into the night. In the course of rescuing her childhood friend Rachel exposes Jonathan Crane to enough of his own toxin that the man will never be the same again… which Ra’s Al Ghul considers a decent punishment, so he instructs his followers to leave Jonathan Crane to rot in police custody before he sets off for Rachel Wayne’s birthday party, eager to see his beloved and learn if she still has the name **_Henri Ducard_** written upon her right wrist, if it has been replaced by **_Ra’s Al Ghul_** or if he will get to watch that change take place before he hands her Gotham on a silver platter and promises her that the world will soon follow.

When he sees **_Alexander Luthor_** written upon his beloved’s wrist he has to restrain himself from killing the bald man right then and there. After all he still has **_Rachel Wayne_** written on his right wrist and his left wrist is still blank, so it’s obvious to Ra’s Al Ghul that this Luthor is his beloved’s enemy who has convinced her they are soul mates. It isn’t until Rachel Wayne— after a truly spectacular bit of acting that drives her party guests away— tears off the bracelet covering her right wrist that the world stops making sense. **_Henri Ducard_** is no longer written on Rachel Wayne’s right wrist… but it has not been replaced by **_Ra’s Al Ghul_**. Instead his beloved’s wrist bears the name of some _other_ man, some **_Clark Kent_** , despite the fact that he _still_ has **_Rachel Wayne_** written across his right wrist, as black as it had been the day that she climbed up the mountain and joined the League of Shadows.

For some time after Gotham— after Rachel Wayne’s revelations of _why **Henri Ducard**_ had remained on her wrist and what had caused it to vanish, after she all but screams at him while in the arms of another man and after _I won’t kill you… but I don’t have to save you!—_ Ra’s Al Ghul struggles with the question of why he still has **_Rachel Wayne_** written upon his right wrist. It isn’t until one of his followers, seeking to curry favor, offers to bring Ra’s Al Ghul the head of his enemy— the head of _Rachel Wayne_ — to prove his devotion and demonstrate his skills. Before Ra’s Al Ghul is even entirely conscious of the fact that he is moving he has disemboweled the unfortunate man and coldly informed those watching that Rachel Wayne is not to be touched… because although she may not be his soul mate, Rachel Wayne is still his beloved. His wrist is proof enough of that for him… and if it is proof enough for him then it is proof enough for the League of Shadows.

— 10 —

So… do you wanna know how I got these scars?

My mother was a… simple woman, _convinced_ the name on her wrist was her soul mate. So what if he uh, slapped her around a bit? What if he uh, drank up all the rent money? She had his name on her wrist and he had her name on his… so he was her soul mate— and that was that.

My father was a drinker… and fiend. He didn’t care about why he had my mother’s name on his wrist. He just liked that she’d cook and clean and _warm_ his bed because of it. When I came along things didn’t change to much… even when I turned three and got a mark on my wrist, even when it got big enough to read. Mostly cause dear old dad didn’t bother to read it.

But then… when I was about eleven my mother realized _whose_ name I had on my wrist and then uh… then the _problems_ started. My father was too drunk to care about the name on my wrist or to do anything about it, but my mother— well she started _rethinking_ some things, thinking maybe the name on my wrist was her ticket to someplace else, someplace better, thinking that maybe Daddy _wasn’t_ her soul mate.

And my father didn’t like that, not one bit. So one night, he goes off— _crazier_ than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself... he doesn’t like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her— **Do you really think someone else would want you? Well they won’t now.** —laughing as he does it. Then… then he turns to me— **You really think her family will accept _you?_ Some brat from the wrong side of the tracks?** —and he comes at me with the knife. He sticks the blade in my mouth and— **Well… now at least you’re guaranteed to have a _smile_ on your face when you meet _Rachel Wayne_** **.**

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Notes:  
> Lillian Luthor’s maiden name is Down because she doesn’t have a canonical maiden name, so I decided to use the last name of her actress, Alison Down.
> 
> Rachel had “Henri Ducard” and Lex and Rachel have “Clark Kent” instead of “Kal-El” because that’s how Clark sees himself. In this AU I decided to with the idea that while having your soul mate/enemy’s birth name is the default, you can occasionally get other names, such as the examples in the story and people with transgender soul mates getting their soul mate’s preferred name.


End file.
